This section introduces aspects that may help facilitate a better understanding of the invention. Accordingly, the statements of this section are to be read in this light and are not to be understood as admissions about what is, or what is not, prior art.
Systems employing integrated photonic circuits can provide powerful platforms for ultra-wide-band signal processing. Silicon-based integrated photonic circuits hold a particularly promising future for high level integration of photonic circuits. Unfortunately, such photonic circuits are subject to frequency drift and photonic device mismatches resulting from temperature changes. The drift and mismatches, called “misalignment,” degrades the performance of the photonic circuits. To counteract this problem, elaborate calibration circuits have been developed as companion chips to the integrated photonic circuits. These calibration circuits have been generally effective at reducing misalignment overall, but still have difficulty providing compensation for larger misalignments.